Reigning with Christ

• Persistence – Continuing/ insisting on pursuing something (good) despite difficulty.
• Hard times are common to us all … Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion. But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.
• We wear out with the setbacks of life’s pursuits, jobs, an errant child, keeping up with the Christian lifestyle and renouncing the old self etc.
• Peter a devoted apostle of Christ claimed after he would never deny Him did so in face of pressure. That is not the end of the story – Jesus prayed that when Satan desired to sift him like wheat, that His faith would not fail.

Word – Most of us feel tired and worn-out with circumstances of life, but your faith will not fail. Those good promises of God in your heart a real. God does not trifle with our hearts. Take a moment; think about what you think may have failed, bring it to the light of God’s faithfulness. Let Faith come alive.

1.            Nehemiah (Nehemiah 1-4)

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• An exiled Jew in the kings’ service with a heart for the Nation.
• When he heard of the ruins of walls of Israel, he was broken in heart.
• Walls; safety, value systems, fortitude. Despair, struggling with a habit, condition, tried and yet we cannot figure out a way out.

Nehemiah’s response.

• Turned to God and prayed. For himself and for the nation. When we are tired, we can turn to God who never get overwhelmed. David – Psalms 61:1-2 When I am overwhelmed, lead me to the Rock than I.
• Promises – Call the promises of God to remembrance.

Never doubt what God tells you in the day when the night comes. Pastor Amos Odur Acila

Numbers 23:19 – God is not a man to lie, nor the son of man to repent, if He said it, He will do it.

• Act wisely and assertively – Chapter 4:8-16-17. Worked with one hand and the other took up weapons.
• When the enemy comes at your door, put up a fight against him. Do not whimper and watch the enemy cause a mess of your household, children, or good life in God. Contend for your faith.
• God has given us weapon that are mighty through God in pulling down strongholds. mighty weapons.
• If it means not sparing the rod for the wellbeing of your children do so, send in multiple applications, if you’ve been dumped, move on. Work and Fight

2.            Subdue your thoughts to conform with God.

• Where do evil thoughts come from? Suicidal thoughts, not good enough, you cannot amount to anything, its not going to get any better?
• The enemy keeps bugging us with ideas, thoughts in our minds of evil and a life less of what God has called us to.
• When we overcome him today, it does not mean he will not return with the same old lie. Generational pattens – for us at our home people conceive outside wedlock. Who told you? I believe it is the enemy revisiting us with the same old lies he told our fathers.
• Proverbs 23:7 – As a man thinks in is heart, so he is. We eventually become the things we think and believe.
• When the enemy comes in with evil or seductive thoughts, we need to respond to him the way Jesus did. Matt 16:23 Get behind me Satan.
• Phil 4:8 – Whatever things are true, noble, pure, lovely, admirable yes think about these.

3.            Eyes on the prize

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses to life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us. And let us run wit endurance the race God has set before us.

We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting Him, He endured the cross, disregarding its shame…